Peru's floods cause $1 million damage in pomegranate crops

Excess rain and flash flooding has led to a drop in pomegranate supply coming from Peru this season. “We’re seeing less than we’d primarily expected due to the weather in Peru,” says David Anthony of Firebaugh, Ca.’s Ruby Fresh Inc. “My grower, AgroVictoria in Lima, reported cold weather and a lot of rain—much more rain than is common for Peru.” In fact, a flash flood to Agro’s crops caused a channel of water to flow through the fields and resulted in an approximate $1 million loss in product. “We think it’s about 25 percent less in volume,” adds Anthony.

While the season is still just getting started—Ruby Fresh is currently bringing in 8-10 loads per week and in about a month, should bring in about 25 loads weekly--Anthony anticipates the pomegranate season might go through to the end of April.

US market for Peruvian pomegranates just opened up
While the fruit from Peru is destined towards the European, Canadian and Asian markets, Ruby Fresh is still mulling over importing Peruvian pomegranates into the U.S. “The US market opened up to Peru this year. There’s one port in Mississippi and the entry protocol is irradiation,” he says. “We haven’t yet made the decision to import because currently the market is strong for our Wonderful variety to Europe, Canada and the Pacific Rim. And the market for the US is unknown. We don’t really have established pricing and we’re not sure how the trade will accept irradiated fruit coming in. Maybe in a few weeks we’ll do some speculative loads, but right now our demand into these established markets is so good, we don’t feel the need to step out.”

Pricing picks up
Prices for those markets seem to be firmer than normal. “For fresh pomegranates, the price on 3.8 kg. FOB loading in Peru, $8-10 US on Cat 1; $6.75-$7.50 for Cat 2,” says Anthony. “It might come off as the season progresses and there’s more volume. But the reason we’re seeing firmer prices this year is because of that reduction in volume.”

Pomegranates from Argentina for arils

Meanwhile Ruby Fresh is importing small shipments of pomegranates from Argentina, which are subjected to the cold-treatment rather than irradiation. But these pomegranates are brought in for arils (the seed pods within pomegranates). “We can extract the pomegranates and do pack-to-order arils and put them in snack cups and ship those throughout the US and Canada,” says Anthony. “This year we’re bringing in 30 container loads and we’ll be shipping arils through to the end of August.”

For more information:
David Anthony
Ruby Fresh Pomegranates
Tel: +1-559-933-0340
david@rubyfresh.com
www.rubyfresh.com